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RABBI BEN EZRA 























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RABBI BEN EZRA 

BY ROBERT BROWNING 

WITH SUPPLEMENTARY ILLUSTRA- 
TIVE QUOTATIONS AND AN INTRO- 
DUCTION BY WILLIAM ADAMS SLADE 



THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK, MDCCCCII 


Copyright, 1902, by T. Y. Crowell & Co. 
Published September, 1902 





0753 . P 
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Composition and electrotype plates by 
D. B. Updike, The Merrymount Press, Boston 


TO MY MOTHER 


INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM ADAMS 
SLADE 


INTRODUCTION ^ a fi6j 

S ^HKjjROWNING’S Rabbi Ben Ezra, as a Jfien 
ISE vindication of age, is suggestive of the 
JsM De Senectute of Cicero. This poem, 
however, is very much more than an exalta- 
tion of the fullness of years ; it is also the state- 
ment of a philosophy for every age and station 
in life. And this philosophy, it may well be 
said, is altogether one of courage and cheer, — 
qualities always in need with young as well as 
with old, and so ever to be noted when found, 
whether in literature or in life. Because of these 
facts, the observations which follow are made. 

In a recent volume of essays, the late Professor 
Everett of Harvard calls Rabbi Ben Ezra “one 
of the most exalted of the poems of Brown- 
ing,” and “also one of the most exalted in the 
whole range of literature.” Professor James 
Seth likewise writes of this poem in his Study 
of Ethical Principles and observes that, “Per- 
haps one of the completest descriptions of the 
ethical life, at least in English literature, is that 
which Browning has given us in his famous 
Rabbi Ben Ezra.” And Mr. F. J. Furnivall, him- 
self now as mellowed with years as the vener- 
able Rabbi, enters this note against the title 
of the poem, in his bibliography of Browning, 

“One of the deepest and weightiest of all 
Browning’s works. My favourite one. It con- 
tains the Philosophy of Life.” 

The praise here recorded is not superlative, 
but rightly stands as the deliberate estimate 
of sympathetic feeling and sound judgment. 

The thought contained in these stanzas is 

3 



TU66i sublime ; the statement of this thought is strik- 
35 Cti ing and as adequate as the statement of thought 
<S$td °f such sublimity can well be. Serene, trustful, 
uplifting, this poem is the expression of a never- 
yielding, unquestioning faith in the power and 
goodness of God and in the righteousness of 
His ways with man. The noble affirmations 
which the poet gives to us, with the Rabbi as 
his mouthpiece, are possible only of a religious 
nature of the truest type. In them the one cen- 
tral thought of the love of God in the life of 
man is everywhere made manifest, and the prin- 
ciple is developed that since the life of man is 
not limited by the confines of this world, the 
struggles it ever knows while here are essen- 
tial to the growth which works upwards from 
the animal within us towards the perfection 
which is our goal. 

Then, welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth’s smoothness rough, 

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go I 
Be our joys three-parts pain ! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 

Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe ! 

This is the bold and cheering cry of the Rabbi. 
And his triumph over the animal he declares, 
as well as the dread alternative if the contend- 
ing forces in life’s struggle are allowed the vic- 
tory, when he says 

A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the scale ; 

and, again, when he says : 

Therefore I summon age 
To grant youth’s heritage, 

4 


Life’s struggle having so far reached its term : 

Thence shall I pass, approved 
A man, for aye removed 

From the developed brute ; a God though in the germ. 


)Ra66t 

T5en 

6?ra 


From such a spiritual height, this splendid ser- 
vant of God gives expression to a confidence in 
the Divine wisdom which makes gain of loss, 
faith of doubt, and success of failure, and which, 
in so doing, finds all things good, all life worthy, 
and age its glorious crown. So, in the repose 
and stillness of the twilight hour of age, the 
pious Rabbi invites us to a survey of life with 
him. Bidding us to trust in God, see all, and 
never fear, he begins with a consideration of 
youth. He has no remonstrance for its indeci- 
sion and ambitions, or for the hopes and anxie- 
ties annulling its best years. Rather he prizes 
our very doubt, and shows us that in the spark 
that disturbs us, we are to discover our elevation 
above the brute kingdom and our alliance with 
our Creator. It then behooves us to strive and 
learn and dare, never heeding the world’s re- 
buffs or the stings and pain of defeat. We must 
never regard failure, except as a means of at- 
taining success, but ever march onwards in 
entire submission to the Divine will, resting 
content in the assurance that all is for the best. 
Progress comes through defeat, and the disap- 
pointments of youth enrich the heritage of age. 
We shall know, being old, and have knowledge 
absolute, and the peace which comes with 
knowledge. And because of the permanence of 
that which is good, God will find value even in 
our immature instincts and unsure purposes. 

5 


ma66i 

3en 


Thoughts hardly to be packed 
Into a narrow act, 

Fancies that broke through language and escaped ; 

All I could never be, 

All, men ignored in me, 

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. 

Our end as vessels is explained by the Rabbi in 
glowing figure to be to slake God’s thirst, and 
he ends his discourse with a renewed declara- 
tion of confidence in the Divine wisdom and 
with the earnest prayer: 

So, take and use Thy work : 

Amend what flaws may lurk, 

What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim I 
My times be in Thy hand 1 
Perfect the cup as planned 1 

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same ! 

Characterized by such spirituality, Rabbi Ben 
Ezra responds to the most ardent longings of 
the soul, and by its buoyant cheerful optimism, 
its vigorous tone, its eloquent statement of be- 
lief and fullest assurance, gives a significance 
to life which, to the believing mind, answers the 
question of the ages. The abiding faith in God, 
the confidence in the righteousness of His deal- 
ings with man throughout this life, and the be- 
lief in a higher, better life to come as shown in 
the utterances of the Rabbi, thus make these 
stanzas much more than a description of the 
ethical life, truly as Professor Seth has stated 
it to be contained in them, and cause them to 
exhibit a religious faith of the loftiest and no- 
blest kind. And this faith, it may be observed, 
while entirely consonant with such a religious 
belief as we should expect a Jewish Rabbi like 
6 


Ben Ezra to hold, is very closely related to &a66i 
Christianity; for, with a foundation completely ffien 
laid in God’s love, it is enabled to perceive the 
means of progress in adversity itself, when pros- ' 

perity might be a stumbling-block in the way. 

But “ Prosperity,” remembering the words of 
Bacon, “is the blessing of the Old Testament, 
adversity is the blessing of the New, which car- 
rieth the greater benediction, and the clearer 
revelation of God’s favour.” Furthermore while 
the Old Testament teaches righteousness, the 
N ewTestament by direct precept teaches right- 
eousness through union with the Divine will. 

“His will is our peace ” is the secret made known 
to Dante in Paradise, and such submission to 
the will of God as was there made known to the 
poet, is taught in the New Testament and is 
taught in Rabbi Ben Ezra. It is unnecessary, 
however, to dwell on the Christian sentiment 
of this poem. As a whole it is naturally and 
appropriately to be taken as an expression of 
thought by a Jewish Rabbi and so as a state- 
ment of pure theism. 

Rabbi Ben Ezra is not, however, an argumen- 
tative poem, like Browning’s La Saisiaz, for 
example, and employs no close or analytical 
reasoning. It is intuitional in its view, and is 
inspired by such spiritual insight or “genius” 
as Browning writes of in a letter dealing with 
this very poem. It is such spiritual insight that 
he ascribes in this letter to Napoleon when he 
said of Christ “ Do you know that I am an under- 
stander of men? Well, He was no man!” and 
also to Charles Lamb, who, when asked how 

7 


3Ra66t he and some friends would feel if Christ entered 
35 en the room in which they were, replied, “You see 

(£+ta “ if Shakespeare entered, we should all rise; 

? if He appeared, we must kneel”; and also to 
Dante, when he said, “Thus I believe, thus I 
affirm, thus I am certain it is, that from this life 
I shall pass to another better, there, where that 
lady lives, of whom my soul was enamoured.” 
This inspiration of the shrewd, keen-witted 
Napoleon, of the gentle Lamb, and of the stead- 
fast Dante is likewise that of Browning. In the 
letter mentioned, he confesses to it; in Rabbi 
Ben Ezra he speaks with it. He does not stop 
to prove, for he knows . 

Such a reassuring voice was sadly needed at 
the time when this poem first appeared. The 
scientific spirit was then dominant, doubt was 
strong, and the wave of new thought seemed 
about to carry away the very foundation of the 
old order of things. So Matthew Arnold, whose 
restless, questioning mind was as the spirit 
of the age itself, sighed to his companion in 
Dover Beach: 

The sea of faith 

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore 
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d. 

But now I only hear 

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 

Retreating, to the breath 

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 

And naked shingles of the world. 

Ah, love, let us be true 

To one another I for the world, which seems 

To lie before us like a land of dreams, 

So various, so beautiful, so new, 

8 


Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, 

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain ; 

And we are here as on a darkling plain 

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, 

Where ignorant armies clash by night. 


fta66t 

T5cti 


Despondency such as this is utterly foreign to 
the stout heart and robust mind of Robert 
Browning. Courage and cheer were his watch- 
words, for hope with him was ever bright and 
faith never failing. So he could sing in notes 
which fully chord with those of Rabbi Ben 
Ezra: 


I find earth not gray but rosy, 
Heaven not grim but fair of hue. 
Do I stoop ? I pluck a posy. 

Do I stand and stare? All’s blue. 


This optimism is more than a protest against 
the doubt and despondency of Browning’s day. 
It is a protest likewise against that doubt and 
despondency of all time which is so well illus- 
trated in many of the quatrains of Fitzgerald’s 
rendering of Omar Khayyam. These Rubaiyat 
of marvellous beauty were first issued in their 
English dress but a few years before Rabbi 
Ben Ezra was published in Dramatis Personae, 
and while the latter may be regarded as a com- 
paratively neglected poem, Omar, as Mr. An- 
drew Lang has said, “is chatted about, written 
about, translated, illustrated, dined over, poet- 
ized about, to an extent which would scarcely be 
excessive if Omar were Homer.” The cause of 
Omar’s popularity is not far to seek. His is the 
record of a soul dealing with the ever-burning 
questions of Why and Whence and Whither, 
and whatever observations he has to offer are 

9 


&a66i strikingly made and with bewildering luxury 
jfi en of metaphor. As poetry, the Rubaiyat are to be 
admired ; as the history of a soul in the search of 
truth, they are to be respected ; as a statement 
of sound thought, they are to be condemned, for 
Omar’s general view is that of an epicurean 
philosopher who preaches a creed outworn in 
the progress of both philosophic and scientific 
investigation. 

In his Rubaiyat, as we have them given to us 
by Fitzgerald, one plunges deep into the myste- 
ries of things, and here where the nightingale 
sings, wine sparkles, and roses exhale their 
fragrance, the anxious seeker for the eternal 
realities is told that his pursuit is vain and that 
the logic absolute he desires is to be found in 
the fruitful grape. Happiness then is the end 
of life, and we are bidden: 

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, 

Before we too into the Dust descend ; 

Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie, 

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and — sans End ! 

From this, it results that the endeavor to make 
the most of our time here in the pursuit of hap- 
piness must become strenuous ; for, according 
to Omar, our time is short and but, 

A Moment’s Halt — a momentary taste 
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste — 

And Lo 1 — the phantom Caravan has reach’d 
The Nothing it set out from — Oh, make haste I 

So brief is life, but long enough for our shadowy 
existences to secure a ‘‘taste of Being” before 
passing into the Nothing which is our destiny. 
Surely the waters of Marah could not be more 
io 


bitter than those of the “Well amid the Waste” *fta66i 
if, in good faith, the pessimistic Omar is made 
the guide to it. Even his conception of God of- 
fers no hope ; for we are > 

But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays 

Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days; 

Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, 

And one by one back in the Closet lays. 

Freedom, moral obligation, God’s love, immor- 
tality, all these would Omar, in his darkest 
moods, wrest from mankind. In their place no 
positive system is erected, nor any solution of 
life’s mysteries attempted through the vision 
of faith when knowledge is dim ; but only the 
cheerless message of “a short life and a merry 
one,” so “let us eat and drink; for to morrow 
we die.” This, with Omar, is all of life we know 
and all it is possible for us to know; and such 
is the chilling, depressing lesson he teaches. 

In striking opposition to this hopelessness is 
the exalted faith of Rabbi Ben Ezra. Calm 
and abiding where Omar is querulous and 
inconstant, confident where Omar doubts, ra- 
tional where Omar is sensual, and with regard 
for both body and soul where Omar degenerates 
into epicureanism pure and simple, this poem 
is in significant contrast with the Rubaiyat 
at many points, while in brief it may be said 
that the former contains a positive affirmation 
for almost every scepticism of the Persian poet. 
Happiness is not the end of life, as Omar would 
have it, and the Rabbi exclaims: 


iz 


Poor vaunt of life indeed, 

Were man but formed to feed 
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast : 

Such feasting ended, then 
As sure an end to men ; 

Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw- 
crammed beast? 

Far removed from feasting-, the life, indeed, is 
more than meat. It has a genuine purpose, and 
that purpose the Rabbi declares is God’s ser- 
vice, in which we make toward the perfection 
He has planned. Consequently the Rabbi holds 
that we are not to live as though life were short 
and that were all, but with eternity in view, for 
which all our experiences here will be of last- 
ing value: 

And I shall thereupon 
Take rest, ere I be gone 
Once more on my adventure brave and new : 
Fearless and unperplexed, 

When I wage battle next, 

What weapons to select, what armour to indue. 

Beside this glowing faith of the Rabbi, the 
gloomy destiny Omar pictures for us as dust 
returned to dust 

and under Dust to lie, 

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and — sans End I 

becomes gloomier still. 

The Rabbi, too, regards us as dust, but in 
striking metaphor represents us as clay being 
molded by God, the Potter, on time’s wheel 
into the perfect vessels which are to be used to 
satisfy His thirst in the Heaven which He has 
prepared and in which our consummation is to 
be attained. In this lofty conception we have 
12 


3Ra66t 

TBen 

(Sjta 


perhaps the finest use of the figure of the pot- S^a66i 
ter’s wheel in literature. Through its symbol- Tfretl 
ism, the Rabbi regards God and the Soul as the (gtta 
two eternal realities : 

All that is, at all, 

Lasts ever, past recall ; 

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure : 

What entered into thee, 

That was, is, and shall be : 

Time’s wheel runs back or stops : Potter and clay endure. 

Omar also uses the same metaphor, but how 
differently may be seen from the following qua- 
trains : 

Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn 
I lean’d, the Secret of my Life to learn : 

And Lip to Lip it murmur’d — “While you live, 

“Drink I — for, once dead, you never shall return.” 

I think the Vessel, that with fugitive 
Articulation answer’d, once did live, 

And drink ; and Ah ! the passive Lip I kiss’d, 

How many Kisses might it take — and give I 

For I remember stopping by the way 
To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay : 

And with its all-obliterated Tongue 
It murmur’d — “ Gently, Brother, gently, pray!” 

And has not such a Story from of Old 
Down Man’s successive generations roll’d 
Of such a clod of saturated Earth 
Cast by the Maker into Human mould? 

And not a drop that from our Cups we throw 
For Earth to drink of, but may steal below 
To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye 
There hidden — far beneath, and long ago. 

In this fantasy the vessel, whether man or the 
drinking cup, is represented as sentient, and so 

13 







5 Ra 66 i is the clay that was man but which, now hidden 
% en far beneath the earth’s surface and resolved 

<£zta into its native dust, still cries for the joys of the 
life it once knew. Such thought as this calls for 
an expression of the opposite view, and it would 
almost seem as though Rabbi Ben Ezra had 
been written with Omar in mind ; but this theory 
is hardly tenable, as has been pointed out in a 
recent volume on Browning. The important 
fact is that Rabbi Ben Ezra is an expression of 
the faith of the ages, the Rubaiyat of the doubt. 
It is an interesting coincidence that the speaker 
in this monologue of Browning was contem- 
poraneous with the Persian tent-maker whom 
Fitzgerald, Browning’s own contemporary, 
has made so widely known. Abraham ben Meir 
ben Ezra, for such is the full name of the lay- 
figure Browning uses, or Ibn Ezra, to give him 
the name by which he is better known, was, 
like Omar, a poet and astronomer. He was also 
accomplished in other directions and deeply 
erudite. He was born in Toledo, in Spain, about 
1088, but left that city in his young manhood, 
after failing to win any degree of appreciation 
there, and started on a wide course of travel. It 
is recorded that he visited Rome, Lucca, Man- 
tua, Verona, Rhodes, England, and France, 
and that he also journeyed to Egypt and per- 
haps to other parts of Africa. In his latter days 
he returned to Rome and died there in 1167. 
Everywhere in his travels Ibn Ezra carried 
with him learning and eloquence. He became 
distinguished not only as an astronomer and 
poet, but also as an astrologer, physician, and 
14 


philosopher, and more especially as a gram- 5Ra66i 
marian and commentator. He is said to have %cn 
been the first to establish biblical exegesis on (gwa 
scientific principles, and he has been called the 
father of the higher criticism. He has also been 
named the first to doubt the unity of the Book 
of Isaiah, though he never doubted that the 
Bible was inspired and contained the word of 
God throughout. 

The word of God as he understood it so ruled 
Ibn Ezra’s life that he became even more noted 
for his piety than for his scholarship. Writing 
of the laws of Moses, he said : “All the precepts 
are to be referred to three things, (i) to piety 
of the heart, (2) to words, (3) to deeds. And as 
unity is contained in every number, so the be- 
ginning of every pious act by deed or word is 
internal piety, without which all worship is false 
and of none avail.” In another place he wrote: 

“ But I have found a verse which includes all the 
precepts, ‘Fear the Lord your God and serve 
Him.’” Ibn Ezra’s life was indeed one of service, 
and it was marked by a singular uprightness 
which must have been the fruit of the internal 
piety of which he wrote. That he needed all the 
consolation that religion could afford is evi- 
dent from his life. His path was not a smooth 
one, but frequently rough and hard. Fortune 
treated him so perversely that he is said to 
have declared in grim humor, “I strive to be- 
come wealthy, but the stars are opposed to me. 

If I were to engage in shroud-making, men 
would cease dying ; or if I made candles, the sun 
would never set unto the hour of my death.” 

15 


5Ra66i Despite the bufferings of time and circum- 
TSetl stance, Ibn Ezra maintained an abiding trust 
* n G°d. His sense °f dependence on a Supreme 
Being is well shown in one of his poems which 
has been translated by Alice Lucas under the 
title of Resignation and printed in the collec- 
tion called The Jewish Year: 

I hope for the salvation of the Lord, 

In Him I trust, when fears my being thrill, 

Come life, come death, according to His word, 

He is my portion still. 

Hence doubting heart I I will the Lord extol 
With gladness, for in Him is my desire, 

Which, as with fatness, satisfies my soul, 

That doth to heaven aspire. 

All that is hidden, shall mine eyes behold, 

And the great Lord of all be known to me, 

Him will I serve, His am I as of old ; 

I ask not to be free. 

Sweet is ev’n sorrow coming in His name, 

Nor will I seek its purpose to explore, 

His praise will I continually proclaim, 

And bless Him evermore. 

This psalm of trust is suggestive of Rabbi Ben 
Ezra. How much of Ibn Ezra’s philosophy has 
been used in Browning’s poem is, however, a 
question, and one perhaps more curious than 
practical. No doubt the thought contained in 
Rabbi Ben Ezra is largely that which Ibn Ezra 
held, as it is also held and always has been 
held by the servants of God through all time, 
and so by Robert Browning, whose own un- 
faltering belief it unmistakably expresses. But 
on the whole, such teachings in these stanzas 
as are peculiar to Ibn Ezra would seem to be 
16 


incidental to those truths which Browning de- 
sired to emphasize and press home. It is alto- 
gether reasonable, then, that Browning should 
be considered as the real speaker here, and 
Ibn Ezra as the lay-figure. At the same time, it 
should not be forgotten how well qualified Ibn 
Ezra is to serve in this capacity. His learning 
and eloquence fit him for the task, as well as 
his Jewish faith, while he is enabled to speak 
with an insight which transcends creed, both 
because of his deeply religious nature and his 
wisdom accruing through years of varied ex- 
perience. He falls as naturally into his place 
for the exposition of the scheme of things here 
set forth as Browning’s Cleon does for a state- 
ment of Greek thought just before the time 
of Christ, or as John the beloved disciple does 
to affirm once more the truthfulness of Chris- 
tianity in that wonderful poem, A Death in the 
Desert. 

The reasons which lead to the view that Rabbi 
Ben Ezra is an expression of Browning’s own 
thought are in the poem itself. Beneath the 
teachings of the Rabbi are to be seen the same 
unwavering confidence in the power and love 
of God which Browning affirms both in his other 
religious poetry and in the letter on the poem 
which has already been quoted, while the teach- 
ings themselves are wholly consistent with sen- 
timents he elsewhere expresses. A few sug- 
gestive quotations from his writings will help to 
illustrate this fact and also to show that Rabbi 
Ben Ezra contains in brief no little of Brown- 
ing’s philosophy. 


&a66i 

35en 

<£*ra 


17 


5Ra66l j n the letter previously mentioned, in which he 
T5ctl writes of the “genius” which inspired the poem, 
there is a distinct echo of the Rabbi’s heart- 
beat: 

“I, who saw power, see now Love perfect too 
for, to his correspondent, Browning says, “It 
is a great thing — the greatest — that a human 
being should have passed the probation of life, 
and sum up its experience in a witness to the 
power and love of God. I dare congratulate 
you. All the help I can offer, in my poor degree, 
is the assurance that I see ever more reason to 
hold by the same hope — and that, by no means 
in ignorance of what has been advanced to the 
contrary.” 

In Saul we also have a similar thought: 

I spoke as I saw : 

I report, as a man may of God’s work — all ’s love, yet all ’s 
law. 

But Karshish, in An Epistle, eagerly questions 
his friend Abib and says: 

The very God ! think, Abib; dost thou think? 

So, the All-Great, were the All- Loving too ? 

While in Reverie, Browning answers this ques- 
tion and expresses his full belief in the identity 
of power and love : 

Then life is — to wake not sleep, 

Rise and not rest, but press 
From earth’s level where blindly creep 
Things perfected, more or less, 

To the heaven’s height, far and steep, 

Where, amid what strifes and storms 
May wait the adventurous quest, 

Power is Love — transports, transforms 

18 


Who aspired from worst to best, 

Sought the soul’s world, spurned the worms’. 

I have faith such end shall be : 

From the first, Power was — I knew. 

Life has made clear to me 
That, strive but for closer view, 

Love were as plain to see. 

These verses also emphasize the matter of 
man’s spiritual growth, which is dwelt upon 
to such an extent in Rabbi Ben Ezra. The fol- 
lowing lines from Christmas-Eve are likewise 
concerned with the same subject: 

What is left for us, save, in growth 
Of soul, to rise up, far past both, 

From the gift looking to the giver, 

And from the cistern to the river, 

And from the finite to infinity, 

And from man's dust to God’s divinity? 

This attitude is also taken in A Death in the 
Desert, where we are told that 

man must pass from old to new, 

From vain to real, from mistake to fact, 

From what once seemed good, to what now proves best. 
How could man have progression otherwise? 

A few lines further on in this poem the thought 
is given that it is man only who progresses, 
and we read that he 

Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact, 

And in this striving, this converting air 
Into a solid he may grasp and use, 

Finds progress, man’s distinctive mark alone, 

Not God’s, and not the beasts’ : God is, they are, 

Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. 

In Reverie, the question is asked : 

How but from near to far 
Should knowledge proceed, increase? 

19 




3Ra66i 

T5en 


JRfl66t 

15m 


Try the clod ere test the star ! 

Bring our inside strife to peace 
Ere we wage, on the outside, war 1 

And in The Pope we have a similar question : 


Is this our ultimate stage, or starting-place 
To try man’s foot, if it will creep or climb, 

’Mid obstacles in seeming, points that prove 
Advantage for who vaults from low to high 
And makes the stumbling-block a stepping-stone? 


Browning thus finds the stimulus to growth, 
as in Rabbi Ben Ezra, in the very difficulties 
of life. In Saul we are shown man 


By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, 
And the next world’s reward and repose, by the struggles 
in this. 

Likewise in Mihrab Shah, pain is looked upon 
as the gift of God : 

Put pain from out the world, what room were left 
For thanks to God, for love to Man ? — 

But pain — see God’s 

Wisdom at work ! — 

In the eye of God 

Pain may have purpose and be justified. 

This thought diverts into another channel in 
Abt Vogler, where the Rabbi’s belief, 

Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail, 

is put in the question: 

And what is our failure here but a triumph’s evidence 
For the fulness of the days? 

While the presentation of the matter in The 
Pope suggests the Rabbi’s “welcome each 
rebuff”: 


20 


Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
And master and make crouch beneath his foot, 
And so be pedestailed in triumph? Pray 
“Lead us into no such temptations, Lord!” 
Yea, but, O Thou whose servants are the bold, 
Lead such temptations by the head and hair, 
Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, 
That so he may do battle and have praise 1 


&a66i 

TBen 


But though the opposing forces in life’s strug- 
gle appear to overcome, the victory is ours, and 
not theirs. In Saul the reason is given in a 
single question and answer which brings to 
mind the comfort the Rabbi finds in his very 
aspirations : 

What stops my despair? 

This ; — ’tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what 
man Would do I 


Furthermore, the Rabbi’s inspiring belief that 
every good shall endure: 

All, the world’s coarse thumb 
And finger failed to plumb, 

So passed in making up the main account ; 

All instincts immature, 

All purposes unsure, 

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s 
amount : 

is finely expressed in the following familiar 
lines from Abt Vogler: 

Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name? 

Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands ! 
What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the 
same? 

Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power 
expands ? 

There shall never be one lost good 1 What was, shall live as 
before ; 


21 


*Ra66i 

TBen 

<S?ta 


The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ; 
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good 
more; 

On the earth, the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a perfect 
round. 

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist ; 
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor 
power 

Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melo- 
dist 

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, 
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, 
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; 
Enough that he heard it once : we shall hear it by-and-by. 

The good Ibn Ezra would very likely have 
given his approval to these sentiments had he 
been alive in Browning’s day, but it is to be 
doubted if Browning felt obliged to go back 
to Ibn Ezra for them or to epitomize them in 
Rabbi Ben Ezra. Were it in the field of these 
observations to do so, additional quotations 
could be gathered from Browning’s works to 
elaborate other features of this poem, with 
which, no doubt, the teachings of Ibn Ezra may 
be found to be in harmony, but which, never- 
theless, are to be credited to Browning. The 
quotations which have been given, however, 
should be sufficient to indicate how truly Rabbi 
Ben Ezra is a statement of Browning’s own 
thought. 

The teachings of this poem are compactly 
stated. So much thought is often crowded into 
a single line that there is not one which does 
not yield its rich ore. Ideas are often taken up 
and developed anew without special regard 
22 


for symmetry or proportion. Not infrequently &a66t 
related ideas are brought into association, and 
the poem is thus given a new significance be- 
cause of its appraisal of values. In this way, 1 
youth and age, body and soul, doubt and faith, 
pleasure and pain, attainment and aspiration, 
are placed side by side, each is pronounced good 
in its own proper place, and each is rated in 
terms about which there can be no mistake. 

But though the thought of Rabbi Ben Ezra is 
compact and though it is not always developed 
with strict regard for sequence, there is rounded 
out here a system of belief as lofty as the high 
hills of God and as deep as the heart of man, 
and the faith of the pious Rabbi, as he speaks 
to us in these stanzas, is constant that while 
the journey of life may often be toilsome, the 
love of God which finds response in heart and 
action will surely guide us all the way and yield 
the fullest revelation at the end. Such is the 
lesson of courage and cheer the Rabbi has for 
all who will heed, and such is the “Philosophy 
of Life” he teaches. 


23 








































RABBI BEN EZRA. BY ROBERT 
BROWNING 


( 


RABBI BEN EZRA 

ROW old along with me! 

The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first was 
made: 

Our times are in His hand 
Who saith “A whole I planned, 

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor 
be afraid!” 



!Ra66i 
T5 en 


ii 

Not that, amassing flowers, 

Youth sighed “Which rose make ours, 
Which lily leave and then as best recall?” 

Not that, admiring stars, io 

It yearned “Nor Jove, nor Mars; 

Mine be some figured flame which blends, 
transcends them all!” 


fit 

Not for such hopes and fears 
Annulling youth’s brief years, 

Do I remonstrate : folly wide the mark ! 
Rather I prize the doubt 
Low kinds exist without, 

Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a 
spark. 


2 7 


tv 


fta66i 



Poor vaunt of life indeed, 
Were man but formed to feed 


20 


On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: 
Such feasting ended, then 
As sure an end to men ; 

Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the 
maw-crammed beast? 


V 


Rejoice we are allied 
To That which doth provide 
And not partake, effect and not receive! 

A spark disturbs our clod ; 

Nearer we hold of God 

Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must 
believe. 30 


Then, welcome each rebuff 
That turns earth’s smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! 
Be our joys three-parts pain! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never 
grudge the throe! 


28 


wi 

For thence, — a paradox 
Which comforts while it mocks, — 

Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail : 
What I aspired to be, 40 

And was not, comforts me: 

A brute I might have been, but would not sink 
i’ the scale. 


&a66i 

15ctx 


viii 

What is he but a brute 
Whose flesh has soul to suit, 

Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want 
play? 

To man, propose this test — 

Thy body at its best, 

How far can that project thy soul on its lone 
way? 


np 

Yet gifts should prove their use: 

I own the Past profuse 50 

Of power each side, perfection every turn : 
Eyes, ears took in their dole, 

Brains treasured up the whole ; 

Should not the heart beat once “ How good to 
live and learn”? 


29 


&a66i 

%tn 

<£$ta 


V 

Not once beat “Praise be Thine! 

I see the whole design, 

I, who saw power, see now Love perfect too : 
Perfect I call Thy plan : 

Thanks that I was a man ! 

Maker, remake, complete, — I trust what Thou 
shaltdo!” 60 


For pleasant is this flesh; 

Our soul, in its rose-mesh 
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest: 
Would we some prize might hold 
To match those manifold 
Possessions of the brute, — gain most, as we 
did best! 


Let us not always say 
“Spite of this flesh to-day 
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the 
whole!” 

As the bird wings and sings, 70 

Let us cry “All good things 
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than 
flesh helps soul!” 


30 


$>ui 

Therefore I summon age 
To grant youth’s heritage, 

Life’s struggle having so far reached its term : 
Thence shall I pass, approved 
A man, for aye removed 
From the developed brute; a God though in 
the germ. 

yiv 

And I shall thereupon 
Take rest, ere I be gone 80 

Once more on my adventure brave and new: 
Fearless and unperplexed, 

When I wage battle next, 

What weapons to select, what armour to indue. 

yv 

Youth ended, I shall try 
My gain or loss thereby; 

Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold : 
And I shall weigh the same, 

Give life its praise or blame : 

Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being 
old. 90 


2Ra66i 

%en 

<£?va 


31 


#U66i 

T5cn 

For note, when evening shuts, 

A certain moment cuts 
The deed off, calls the glory from the grey: 

A whisper from the west 
Shoots — “Add this to the rest. 

Take it and try its worth : here dies another 
day.” 

So, still within this life, 

Though lifted o’er its strife, 

Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, 
“This rage was right i’ the main, ioo 
That acquiescence vain : 

The Future I may face now I have proved the 
Past.” 

For more is not reserved 
To man, with soul just nerved 
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: 
Here, work enough to watch 
The Master work, and catch 
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool’s 
true play. 


32 


w? 

As it was better, youth 
Should strive, through acts uncouth, no 
Toward making, than repose on aught found 
made: 

So, better, age, exempt 
From strife, should know, than tempt 
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor 
be afraid! 

w 

Enough now, if the Right 
And Good and Infinite 

Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine 
own, 

With knowledge absolute, 

Subject to no dispute 

From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee 
feel alone. 120 

w* 

Be there, for once and all, 

Severed great minds from small, 
Announced to each his station in the Past ! 
Was I, the world arraigned, 

Were they, my soul disdained, 

Right? Let age speak the truth and give us 
peace at last! 


&a66i 

J5en 

<S$va 


33 


3R«66i 

35m 


Now, who shall arbitrate? 

Ten men love what I hate, 

Shun what I follow, slight what I receive ; 
Ten, who in ears and eyes 130 

Match me: we all surmise, 

They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my 
soul believe? 


$$iii 

Not on the vulgar mass 
Called “work,” must sentence pass, 
Things done, that took the eye and had the 
price ; 

O’er which, from level stand, 

The low world laid its hand, 

Found straightway to its mind, could value in 
a trice: 


y$iv 

But all, the world’s coarse thumb 
And finger failed to plumb, 140 

So passed in making up the main account; 
All instincts immature, 

All purposes unsure, 

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the 
man’s amount : 


34 


Thoughts hardly to be packed 
Into a narrow act, 

Fancies that broke through language and es- 
caped ; 

All I could never be, 

All, men ignored in me, 

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the 
pitcher shaped. 150 


&aB6i 

TBen 

<8fta 


Iplpvi 


Ay, note that Potter’s wheel, 

That metaphor ! and feel 
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our 
clay, — 

Thou, to whom fools propound, 

When the wine makes its round, 

“Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, 
seize to-day!” 

Fool! All that is, at all, 

Lasts ever, past recall ; 

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand 
sure: 

What entered into thee, 160 

That was, is, and shall be: 

Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and 
clay endure. 


35 


m«66i 

T5en 


^viii 

He fixed thee mid this dance 
Of plastic circumstance, 

This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain ar- 
rest: 

Machinery just meant 
To give thy soul its bent, 

Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently im- 
pressed. 

What though the earlier grooves 
Which ran the laughing loves 170 

Around thy base, no longer pause and press? 
What though, about thy rim, 

Scull-things in order grim 
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner 
stress? 

Look not thou down but up ! 

To uses of a cup, 

The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s 
peal, 

The new wine’s foaming flow, 

The Master’s lips a-glow! 

Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what needst 
thou with earth’s wheel? 180 


36 


3Ra66i 

15en 

6jra 


But I need, now as then, 

Thee, God, who mouldest men ; 

And since, not even while the whirl was worst, 
Did I— to the wheel of life 
With shapes and colours rife, 

Bound dizzily — mistake my end, to slake Thy 
thirst: 


So, take and use Thy work: 

Amend what flaws may lurk, 

What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past 
the aim ! 

My times be in Thy hand ! 190 

Perfect the cup as planned ! 

Let age approve of youth, and death complete 
the same ! 


37 













APPENDIX ft a 66i 

HE illustrative passages which follow have been 
chosen because of their value in interpreting the 
thought of Rabbi Ben Ezra, for they deal with 0^(1 
the same matters and largely in the same spirit. 
Wherever they differ, the contrast has served to emphasize 
the teachings of the Rabbi. Especially is this true of the se- 
lections from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Little com- 
ment is given, and the extracts are allowed to stand for the 
power they possess of explaining the philosophy of Brown- 
ing’s poem. 

LINES i to 3 

Let one more attest, 

I have lived, seen God’s hand through a lifetime, and all 
was for best 1 — Saul. 

By the spirit, when age shall o’ercome thee, thou still shalt 
enjoy 

More indeed, than at first when inconscious, the life of a 
boy. — Ibid. 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll 1 
Leave thy low- vaulted past 1 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea ! 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Chambered Nautilus. 

In contrast to this and to the cheerful serenity of Rabbi Ben 
Ezra is Matthew Arnold’s sad answer to his own question, 

“What is it to grow old?” 

It is to spend long days, 

And not once feel that we were ever young ; 

It is to add, immured 

In the hot prison of the present, month 

To month with weary pain. 

It is to suffer this, 

And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. 

Deep in our hidden heart 



41 


ma66i 

T5en 

a 


Festers the dull remembrance of a change, 

But no emotion — none. 

It is — last stage of all — 

When we are frozen up within, and quite 
The phantom of ourselves, 

To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost, 

Which blamed the living man. 

— Matthew Arnold, Growing Old. 


LINES i to 6 

Look at the generations of old, and see ; did ever any trust 
in the Lord and was confounded ? or did any abide in His fear, 
and was forsaken? or whom did He ever despise, that called 
upon Him?— Ecclesiasticus ii. io. Quoted by Alice Lucas 
in connection with the poem Resignation by Ibn Ezra. 

LINE 2. The best is yet to be. 

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into 
the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for 
them that love him. — I Corinthians ii. 9. 

LINE 4. Our times are in His hand. Compare line 190. 
Also the following : 

My times are in thy hand. — Psalm xxxi. 15. 

My times are in Thy hand, 

Thou knowest what is best, 

And where I fear to stand, 

Thy strength brings succour bless’d. 

— Ibn Ezra, Hymn of Praise. Translated and composed by 

Alice Lucas. 

Blessed is he whose hand maintains 
The soul of all who live. 

— Ibn Ezra, The Living God. Translated and composed by 

Alice Lucas. 

LINES 4 to 6 

Fear thou not ; for I am with thee : be not dismayed ; for 
I am thy God : I will strengthen thee ; yea, I will help thee ; 
yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteous- 
ness. — Isaiah xli. 10. 

42 


LINE 5. A whole I planned. Compare line 56. 

LINE 6. See all, nor be afraid ! Compare line 114. Also : 

Thou wilt save me, Thou wilt guard me, 

Mine exalted King. 

Have regard to my entreaty 
And good tidings bring. 

Unto us Thy needy people 
Let Thine answer ring : 

Fear thou not, for I behold thee, 

I will strengthen and enfold thee, 

Yea, my right hand shall uphold thee ! 

I am thy salvation ! 

— I bn Ezra, Prayer for Help. Translated and composed by 
Alice Lucas. 

Let not your heart be troubled. — John xiv. 1. 

Fear not, little flock. — Luke xii. 32. 

Compare also Isaiah xli. 10, quoted above. 

LINES 7 to 15 

O Life ! how pleasant, in thy morning, 

Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning! 
Cold-pausing Caution’s lesson scorning, 

We frisk away, 

Like school-boys at th’ expected warning, 

To joy an’ play. 

— Burns, Epistle to James Smith. 

LINE 16. Rather I prize the doubt. 

— let doubt occasion still more faith ! 

- Bishop Blougram’s Apology. 

You call for faith : 

I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists. 

The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say, 

If faith o’ercomes doubt. — Ibid. 

— to be once in doubt 
Is once to be resolv’d. 

— Shakespeare, Othello, Act III, Scene 3, line 179. 

43 


*Ra66i 

ISen 


ma66i 

TSen 

<S?ra 


— modest doubt is call’d 
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches 
To the bottom of the worst. 

— Shakespeare, TroilusandCressida, Act 1 1, Scene 2, line 15. 


LINES 17 and 18 

Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and 
maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven? — Job xxxv. 11. 


LINES 19 to 21 

The life is more than meat, and the body is more than rai- 
ment. — Luke xii. 23. 

LINES 31 to 36 

Count each affliction, whether light or grave, 

God’s messenger sent down to thee ; do thou 
With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow ; 

And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave 
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave ; 

Then lay before him all thou hast. Allow 
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow, 

Or mar thy hospitality ; no wave 

Of mortal tumult to obliterate 

The soul’s marmoreal calmness. Grief should be 

Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate, 

Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free ; 

Strong to consume small troubles ; to commend 
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the 
end. 

- Aubrey Thomas de Vere, Sorrow. 

LINES 40 and 41, and 133 to 150 

Of all the myriad moods of mind 
That through the soul come thronging, 

Which one was e’er so dear, so kind, 

So beautiful as Longing ? 

The thing we long for, that we are 
For one transcendent moment, 

Before the Present poor and bare 
Can make its sneering comment. 

Still, through our paltry stir and strife, 

Glows down the wished Ideal, 

44 


And Longing moulds in clay what Life 
Carves in the marble Real ; 

To let the new life in, we know, 

Desire must ope the portal ; 

Perhaps the longing to be so 
Helps make the soul immortal. 


3ft«66i 

JSen 

e?ta 


Longing is God’s fresh heavenward will 
With our poor earthward striving ; 

We quench it that we may be still 
Content with merely living ; 

But, would we learn that heart’s full scope 
Which we are hourly wronging, 

Our lives must climb from hope to hope 
And realize our longing. 

Ah ! let us hope that to our praise 
Good God not only reckons 
The moments when we tread His ways, 

But when the spirit beckons, — 

That some slight good is also wrought 
Beyond self-satisfaction, 

When we are simply good in thought, 

Howe’er we fail in action. 

— James Russell Lowell, Longing. 


Lines 43 to 45 

While were it so with the soul, — this gift of truth 
Once grasped, were this our soul’s gain safe, and sure 
To prosper as the body’s gain is wont, — 

Why, man’s probation would conclude, his earth 
Crumble. 

— A Death in the Desert. 


LINES 46 to 48 

In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it 
bears fruit — Saul. 

LINE 54. How good to live and learn? 

How good is man’s life, the mere living ! how fit to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy I 

— Saul. 


45 


2Ka66i lines 76 to 78 

Arise and fly 

✓£ The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; 

Move upward, working out the beast, 

And let the ape and tiger die. 

— Tennyson, In Memoriam. 

LINE 84. What weapons to select, what armour to indue. 

Compare Ephesians vi. 13 to 17. 

LINES 109 to 114 

Contrast the following : 

Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit 
Of This and That endeavour and dispute ; 

Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape 
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit. 

— Omar Khayyam, Edward Fitzgerald’s Translation. 

LINES 115 to 120 

Contrast the following : 

Myself when young did eagerly frequent 
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument 
About it and about : but evermore 
Came out by the same door where in I went. 

— Omar Khayyam, Edward Fitzgerald’s Translation. 

LINES 127 to 132 

The gods laugh in their sleeve 
To watch man doubt and fear, 

Who knows not what to believe 
Since he sees nothing clear, 

And dares stamp nothing false where he finds nothing sure. 

— Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna. 

Browning’s escape from the dilemma is as follows : 

From thine apprehended scheme of things, deduce 
Praise or blame of its contriver, shown a niggard or pro- 
fuse 

In each good or evil issue ! nor miscalculate alike 
Counting one the other in the final balance, which to 
strike, 

46 


Soul was born and life allotted : ay, the show of things un 
furled 

For thy summing up and judgment, — thine no other mor 
tal’s world ! 

— La Saisiaz 

Ask thine lone soul what laws are plain to thee, — 
Thee and no other, - stand or fall by them ! 

That is the part for thee : regard all else 
For what it may be — Time’s illusion. This 
Be sure of — ignorance that sins, is safe. 

No punishment like knowledge! 

— Ferishtah’s Fancies : A Camel Driver. 

LINES 145 to 150 

The inward work and worth 
Of any mind, what other mind may judge 
Save God who only knows the thing He made, 

The veritable service He exacts? 

It is the outward product men appraise. 

— The Pope. 


- 3Ra66i 
15en 


LINES 151 and 152 

But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, 
and thou our potter ; and we all are the work of thy hand. 
— Isaiah lxiv. 8. 

Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will 
cause thee to hear my words. 

Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he 
wrought a work on the wheels. 

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the 
hand of the potter : so he made it again another vessel, as 
seemed good to the potter to make it 
Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 

O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? 
saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so 
are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel. — Jeremiah xviii. 
2 to 6. 

Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? 
Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast 
thou made me thus? 


47 


&«66i Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump 
1ft ph to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour ? 

- Romans ix. 20, 21. 



Eternal Potter, whose blest hands did lay 
My coarse foundation from a sod of clay, 

Thou know’st my slender vessel ’s apt to leak ; 

Thou know’st my brittle temper ’s prone to break : 

Are my bones brazil, or my flesh of oak ? 

O, mend what thou hast made, what I have broke : 
Look, look, with gentle eyes, and in thy day 
Of vengeance, Lord, remember I am clay. 

— Quarles’s Emblems, 1 Book Third, Emblem V. 

Omar’s description of the scene in the Potter’s house is given 
by Fitzgerald as follows : 

As under cover of departing Day 
Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazan away, 

Once more within the Potter’s house alone 
I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay. 

Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small, 

That stood along the floor and by the wall ; 

And some loquacious Vessels were ; and some 
Listen’d perhaps, but never talk’d at all. 

Said one among them — “Surely not in vain 
“My substance of the common Earth was ta’en 
“And to this Figure moulded, to be broke, 

“Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again.” 

Then said a Second — “Ne’er a peevish Boy 
“Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy; 

“And He that with his hand the Vessel made 
“Will surely not in after Wrath destroy.” 

After a momentary silence spake 
Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make ; 

1 One of the books he [Browning] best and earliest loved 
was Quarles’ Emblemes , which his father possessed in a 
seventeenth century edition, and which contains one or two 
very tentative specimens of his early handwriting. — Quoted 
from Mrs. Sutherland Orr’s Life and Letters of Robert 
Browning. 


“They sneer at me for leaning all awry: 

“What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?” 

Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot — 

I think a Sufi pipkin — waxing hot — 

“All this of Pot and Potter — Tell me then, 

“Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?” 

“Why,” said another, “Some there are who tell 
“Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell 
“The luckless Pots he marr’d in making — Pish! 
“He’s a Good Fellow, and ’twill all be well.” 

“Well,” murmur’d one, “Let whoso make or buy, 

“My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry: 

“ But fill me with the old familiar Juice, 

“Methinks I might recover by and by.” 

So while the Vessels one by one were speaking, 

The little Moon look’d in that all were seeking : 

And then they jogg’d each other, “Brother! Brother! 
“Now for the Porter’s shoulder-knot a-creaking!” 1 

LINES 154 to 159 
Contrast the following : 

Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; 
should hope be more? 

In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb’d away. 
Seize the present ; trust to-morrow e’en as little as you may. 
— Horace, Odes, Book I, Ode xi. Translated by John Con- 
ington. 

LINES 157 and 158 

What is excellent, 

As God lives, is permanent ; 

1 At the close of the Fasting Month, Ramazan (which 
makes the Musulman unhealthy and unamiable), the first 
Glimpse of the New Moon (who rules their division of the 
Year), is looked for with the utmost Anxiety, and hailed 
with Acclamation. Then it is that the Porter’s Knot may 
be heard — toward the Cellar. — Quoted from Fitzgerald’s 
notes to the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. 


Ka66i 

T5en 


49 


3Ra66t 

T5en 

<S$va 


Hearts are dust, hearts’ loves remain ; 

Heart’s love will meet thee again. 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Threnody. 


LINES 160 and 161 

A doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul and one held by 
Ibn Ezra. Compare the following : 


Doubt you if, in some such moment, 

As she fixed me, she felt clearly, 

Ages past the soul existed, 

Here an age ’t is resting merely, 

And hence fleets again for ages, 

While the true end, sole and single, 

It stops here for is, this love- way, 

With some other soul to mingle? 

— Cristina. 


Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar : 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God, who is our home. 

— Wordsworth, Ode. Intimations of Immortality. 

LINE 178. The new wine’s foaming flow. 

But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit 
of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in 
my Father’s kingdom. — Matthew xxvi. 29. 

LINE 186. My end, to slake Thy thirst. 

God who registers the cup 
Of mere cold water, for his sake 
To a disciple rendered up, 

Disdains not his own thirst to slake 
At the poorest love was ever offered. 

— Christmas- Eve. 


50 


LINE 192. And death complete the same. 

Knowledge by suffering entereth, 

And Life is perfected by Death. 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Vision of Poets. 

— for still we hope 
That in a world of larger scope, 

What here is faithfully begun 
Will be completed, not undone. 

— A. H. Clough, ‘Through a Glass Darkly.’ 


3Ra66i 

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Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
(724) 779-2111 


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